As Playland Park slowly puts its pieces back together after the devastation of Superstorm Sandy, the effort to turn the park over to a private operator with a vision for an family destination stocked with year-round attractions is ever closer to falling apart.

Several officials are predicting that Sustainable Playland, handpicked by Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino to take over the county-owned park and ease the strain on the county's books, will not make it through the current review by the Board of Legislators.

Parker said she thinks there's "no future" for Sustainable Playland. She and others think the county should pick a different operator for the historic amusement park at Playland and let the county Parks Department run the beach, pool, Ice Casino and other public spaces as they have for decades.

"I get the sense that the legislators would like to see a solid plan in place for 2015," Parker said.

Maciej Kapelko with Milcon Constructions puts the finishing touches on gutter extensions on the roof of the Playland ice rink at Rye Playland on May 13, 2014. The roof have been resurfaced and upgraded.
Ricky Flores Ricky Flores/The Journal News

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Despite the turmoil, the park has opened for the summer season and the county has continued to fix the damage from Sandy. Over the winter, contractors replaced the boardwalk with hardwood and repaired the roof on the

. The roof replacement allowed the county to uncover stained glass diamond-shaped skylights that had been boarded over and to return to the original custom metal roof. More work is being done on the outside of the Ice Casino and it is scheduled to open for the fall hockey season.

When he came into office in 2010, Astorino set a goal of making Playland, which costs taxpayers a few million dollars a year, pay for itself. Declaring "the model is broken," he asked for proposals from private operators that could bring new investment and increase revenue. After a committee of citizens and officials chose three finalists in 2011, Astorino picked Sustainable Playland in 2012. The Rye nonprofit's initial vision was for a greener park focused around a great lawn and a wider variety of activities that would bring in patrons year-round.

But from the beginning the plan has been battered by problems.

Almost immediately after it was announced, Sandy ripped through. Legislator Ken Jenkins, D-Yonkers, filed two separate lawsuits challenging the administration's decision to enter the deal without board approval.

More than a year ago, neighbors began organizing against Sustainable, objecting to the plan to shrink the amusement park, which was later reversed, and criticizing the construction of a large field house, which would swallow up a chunk of the parking lot. This spring, the Friends of Edith Read Wildlife Sanctuary withdrew its support for Sustainable over concerns about overflow parking in a bird nesting area that links Playland to the sanctuary. Around the same time, the city of Rye asserted approval authority over construction at the park and the dispute has been sent to the state for a decision.

Ken Ball, who has lived a block or so from the park for 46 years, said he is encouraged that the momentum is swinging away from Sustainable.

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(Photo: Tania Savayan/The Journal News)

"Once you start getting to the facts and you get inside what these people are really trying to do or (not) do, it really stinks," he said.

For a month this spring, Sustainable Playland stopped participating in a review by the Board of Legislators of the construction plans, saying the lawsuits and Rye's position created too much uncertainty. They came back in early May.

Geoffrey Thompson, a spokesman for Sustainable, said they continue to think they have the right vision for the park.

"The approval process and related issues such as lawsuits and threatened ones have made moving forward toward implementation very challenging," he said by email. "We are currently evaluating the best opportunities to begin a phase-in of elements of the plan to assure that the park restoration and revitalization program begins to move forward."

Ned McCormack, a spokesman for Astorino, said the legislators are entitled to their process.

But, "the need to change the status quo of Playland won't change," he said.

Many residents and at least some legislators think the county should turn to one of the other two finalists who submitted proposals in 2011, Central Amusement International, which runs Luna Park at Coney Island and was brought in by Sustainable to be its amusement operator, or Standard Amusements, which is backed by an investment company promising millions of dollars in investment in the park. Their supporters think they could turn the amusement zone around, be in place in a shorter time and cause less friction with neighbors and the city of Rye.

Board of Legislators Chairman Michael Kaplowitz, D-Somers, agreed that at this point Sustainable's plans seem tenuous. A key meeting will be held next week on the financial details and a committee vote is scheduled for early July. Parker's switch from supporting to opposing Sustainable will have significant pull with other legislators, he said, since legislators often defer to the local representative.

"It does reduce the margin of support for and potentially imperils the vote itself," he said.